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Getting Organized for the Upcoming Year

September 7, 2011 //  by Renee//  28 Comments

Written by contributor Renee Tougas of FIMBY.

Many of us are starting a new school year this September even though we aren’t catching the bus to do so.

Our family homeschools year round. For an excellent article on different ways to structure your school year I recommend Toni’s post Creating a Homeschool Schedule.

For record keeping purposes I start our school year the beginning of September and wrap it up at the end of the following August. So for these past couple weeks I have been putting together our family learning portfolio for the 2010-2011 year and getting ready for the 2011-2012 school year.

Today I want to share with you how I organized the planning and record keeping for this upcoming school year. Instead of trying to write it all out and take photos to illustrate I decided to do a video, my first here at Simple Homeschool.

In the video I show the planning sheets I use for keeping track of our weekly learning as well as other general plans and ideas. Many of these I make myself in a simple spreadsheet. (If the video isn’t showing up you can access it here.)

I also print out and use a few of the pages from the List PlanIt Home Education ePlanner.

The calendars I show came from Organizing Life As MOM. Jessica is a fellow contributor here at Simple Homeschool and has a complete Organizing Life As Mom homeschool pack available.

Those are two resources to check out if you are looking for ready made planning sheets.

How do you get organized for the school year?

Category: organization

About Renee

Renee is a creative homemaker and homeschooling mama of three. She loves to write, take pretty photos, and be in nature with her family. Her mission is to nourish, encourage, and teach; build relationship and create beauty. FIMBY is where she tells that story. Drawing from her years of experience and training, Renee also offers individual and personalized Homeschool Coaching.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lori

    September 7, 2011 at 7:52 am

    Renee, I love the video! I always enjoy your posts. Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Heather

    September 7, 2011 at 8:12 am

    This is a great resource! I like the weekly sheets that you keep track of what the kids are learning. I am definitely going to steal this idea 🙂
    Heather’s latest post: staying motivated

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 7, 2011 at 10:54 am

      Feel free to steal, but let’s call it sharing.

      My kids are now 12,10 & 8 and this is the first year I’m doing weekly learning sheets. I used to do monthly with roughly the same categories.
      Renee’s latest post: My No-Nonsense Strategy for Picky Eaters

      Reply
  3. lisa @thebeadgirl

    September 7, 2011 at 9:49 am

    thanks for the great tips…you did a great job!

    off to buy some binders and get a bit more organized for this year!

    ~ lisa
    lisa @thebeadgirl’s latest post: A New Start and a Birthday Recap

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 7, 2011 at 10:56 am

      oh… that’s the fun part. buying supplies. I am a office store junkie. I have to stick to my list because I am easily wooed by folders, binders, papers, pencils, pens…
      Renee’s latest post: My No-Nonsense Strategy for Picky Eaters

      Reply
      • lisa @thebeadgirl

        September 7, 2011 at 11:14 am

        that’s why i will have a list! lol!
        lisa @thebeadgirl’s latest post: A New Start and a Birthday Recap

        Reply
  4. Michelle

    September 7, 2011 at 9:52 am

    I really like the video format for this post. Much better than reading it all. Thanks Renee.

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 7, 2011 at 10:55 am

      Thank you. I was hoping it would make more sense if you could actually see what I was trying to explain. Sometimes video is just best for that.
      Renee’s latest post: My No-Nonsense Strategy for Picky Eaters

      Reply
  5. Sara S

    September 7, 2011 at 11:22 am

    So neat to hear your voice Renee. 🙂 I have a similar way of notebooking, but I have two binders. I like how yours is condensed into one. I have a seperate record keeping binder, but I think I might combined it into my main lesson planner.
    Sara S’s latest post: Recent Flowers

    Reply
  6. Stacey

    September 7, 2011 at 11:33 am

    Thank you! As we start our first official year it is reassuring to see that keeping track of learning doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Right now I’m just using a weekly planner and filling each day afterwards with what happens. I like the idea of the binders for keeping the work in, I was trying to figure that part out (currently we have a cardboard box but the cats seem to think it’s their bed).
    Stacey’s latest post: The Studio Part 3

    Reply
  7. Amanda

    September 7, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    Thank you for this video! I have a preschooler and I’m new to all this (although I was homeschooled myself…you think I’d know what I’m doing!). This was inspiring and I love the personal nature of a video! So, again, thanks!
    Amanda’s latest post: What It Takes For Me to Be Healthy

    Reply
  8. Jessica

    September 7, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    I love seeing YOU! Totally puts a different perspective on your personality. 🙂 Wish Nova Scotia and San Diego weren’t about as far away on the continent as you could get! LOL
    Jessica’s latest post: 5 Ways to Welcome Your Child Home From School

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 8, 2011 at 7:44 am

      I hope a good perspective (wink) on my personality.
      Renee’s latest post: The Good, The Bad & The Embarrassing ~ FIMBY Outtakes

      Reply
  9. Jill Foley

    September 7, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    I’ve put together binders for my girls, but never thought to put one together for me. It makes total sense and I feel like a dunce for not thinking of it. Now I’ll have a place for all those book lists and ideas : )
    Jill Foley’s latest post: A Country Far Away book giveaway

    Reply
  10. debra

    September 7, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    This is so helpful (and yes, I enjoy hearing your voice – I watched your homeschooling presentation a few years ago when I first found FIMBY and it’s nice to have your voice to go along with your words. nicely done!) – this past year I used your system of keeping family learning notes, which helped immensely, and I think this system of collecting samples etc as we go (instead of during the 2 weeks before our evaluation!) will be good. A question – do you have a large bookcase full of binders (!!) or do you file the contents and reuse the binder for the coming year? Just wondering if old binders get looked at down the road (ours probably would).
    debra’s latest post: Sewing and concealed shoes…

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 8, 2011 at 7:46 am

      We have a bookcase shelf of learning binders. We just keep everything in the binders from year to year. I label the spines with the year and child’s name, etc… It’s like scrapbooks really. The kids love going back and looking at their old work, lots of laughs and good memories when they do.
      Renee’s latest post: The Good, The Bad & The Embarrassing ~ FIMBY Outtakes

      Reply
  11. Brittany

    September 7, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    Another thank you for providing this by video, rather than text! Your blog is an inspiration to me as I begin my first “official” year of school with our 5 year-old.

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 8, 2011 at 7:50 am

      Have fun. Life with children that age is so full of wonder and just sweet, sweet times. Cuddles on the couch, lots of reading aloud, nature walks and crafts. That was our early years of homeschooling.
      Renee’s latest post: The Good, The Bad & The Embarrassing ~ FIMBY Outtakes

      Reply
  12. Jill

    September 8, 2011 at 12:08 am

    LOL I just bought binders a couple of days ago! My girls are pre-k so I figure I won’t do a binder per year, but rather have this one show pre-k through 1st and then maybe do one binder per year or maybe two years. Like you I only keep the progress monitoring things (a beginning and ending sample). I do think I will put in some memory things as well (such as pictures of them in their gymnastics class for their phys ed and their summer reading list they did at the library this summer). What I didn’t think about was a binder for me! Great idea for lesson planning!

    Reply
    • Renee

      September 8, 2011 at 7:49 am

      Absolutely Jill. I kept a binder for each of my children from birth to about age 7, when I started “school stuff” with them. In these binders I put their favorite artwork, pages where I scribbled down their sweet sayings, lots of stuff that was either meaningful to me or them.

      You can read a bit more about that here:
      http://fimby.tougas.net/keeping-family-memories
      Renee’s latest post: The Good, The Bad & The Embarrassing ~ FIMBY Outtakes

      Reply
  13. Sarah O.

    September 8, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    Love the video and the idea of having everything stored and saved. I am going to have each of my kids do this also because it seems like so much fun to look back at what they have done! Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  14. Sarah

    September 8, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    Love the video 🙂 and the ideas. Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply
  15. Ellen

    October 7, 2013 at 3:34 pm

    Renee,
    I have a ten month old daughter, and have been on an alternative educational methods quest since she was born that started with Montessori, then Waldorf, then classical homeschooling, through Charlotte Mason, and now I have landed, in many ways, on the FIMBY method. : ) I hope that you are still doing homeschooling coaching in a few years when my daughter is a little older because I can’t wait to schedule an hour to talk things through with you. For now, your writing and videos will have to do – and they are a fantastic resource. I agree with the others, it is great to hear your voice, and I love your dress! Anyway, thank you so much for all of the work that you put into providing resources for others. I am so thankful!

    Reply

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